The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on October 9. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════
China RE Sets Price Range for $2 Bln HK IPO; to Launch Deal Monday – Source (English article)
Bottom line: A major US trade group’s new call for censure of Alibaba over piracy will bring more negative publicity, though the company’s name is unlikely to reappear on the next edition of Washington’s “notorious markets” list for trade in counterfeit goods.
Group says Taobao still plagued by fakes
A major US trade group that launched an assault on Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) earlier this year is ratcheting up the volume of its attack, calling for direct censure of the Chinese e-commerce giant for not doing enough to fight piracy. The American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) was quite scathing in its earlier criticism of Alibaba back in July, blasting the company for its flawed approach and lack of transparency in tackling piracy on its Taobao C2C marketplace.
At the time of that critique the AAFA said it was sending a letter detailing its concerns to the US Trade Representative’s office, which compiles an annual list of “notorious markets” where piracy is rampant. Now the AAFA, which represents more than 1,000 American clothing and shoe makers, is being even more direct by specifically calling for Alibaba to be included on the next edition of the “notorious” list that is likely to be published in the next 2-3 months. (AAFA announcement; English article) Read Full Post…
Update: An official at an investment firm involved in the deal confirmed to YCBB that the merger talks are happening.
Bottom line: The merger of Dinaping an Meituan will make uneasy in-laws of Tencent and Alibaba, and will likely be followed within a year by a buyout by one of the partners or IPO for the new company.
Meituan, Dianping in uneasy union
The headlines are buzzing today with word of an imminent merger between leading group buying sites Dianping and Meituan on this first day back to work after the week-long National Day holiday. The deal is certainly a landmark one, as it will create a clear leader in the emerging category of online-to-offline (O2O) companies that bring together the convenience of Internet buying with offline products and services like restaurant dining, going to the movies and hailing a taxi.
Some media are pointing out the merger will pose a major new challenge to the aggressive O2O aspirations of Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), which is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into building out its own rival services. But for me, this particular marriage represents the latest chapter of an increasingly close but also uncomfortable alliance between the country’s other 2 Internet giants, Tencent (HKEx: 700) and Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), which are major stakeholders in Dianping and Meituan, respectively. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on October 6-8. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════
Meituan, Dianping in Merger Talks – Source (Chinese article)
Apparel, Footwear Industry Calls for Taobao Relisting as “Notorious Market” (press release)
China to Hasten Roll-out of Car Charging Network: Xinhua (English article)
Yum’s (NYSE: YUM) China Missteps Amplify Calls For Spinoff, Other Change (English article)
Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) Closes Purchase of Ontario Assets from KKR (PRNewswire)
Bottom line: YIngli’s debt restructuring plan and ReneSola’s early debt repurchase will bring some confidence to solar shares, but pessimism will quickly return as their situations deteriorate without major signals of new government support.
Yingli delays debt repayment
Shares of Yingli (NYSE: YGE) and ReneSola (NYSE: SOL) have taken investors on a wild ride these last few weeks, reflecting the alternating hopes and fears gripping 2 of the shakiest companies in a solar sector crippled by a downturn now entering its fourth year. If I were a betting man, I would say the chances are better than 80 percent that Yingli won’t survive the crisis, especially after the company’s latest announcement that it will miss a debt repayment deadline. Chances for ReneSola look slightly better, but even then I would only put the company’s likelihood of survival at 50-50.
One of the biggest questions fueling the uncertainty is whether Beijing and local governments will step in to rescue these companies. A year ago the answer would almost certainly have been “no”, reflecting China’s desire to clean up a bloated sector plagued with excess capacity. Recent signals show Beijing may still want to let the weakest players fail, but also that China’s slowing economy may be weakening that resolve. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Apple’s new drive to sell legal music, books and video in China stands a reasonably good chance of success, banking on consumers’ growing willingness to pay for such products if they are convenient and affordably priced.
iTunes comes to China
Following the record-breaking debut for its iPhone 6s models, tech giant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) is taking a big new risk by attempting something no one has done yet successfully: making profits from selling legal music and movies in China. The move was part of a newly announced major expansion of Apple’s online store in its second largest global market. But while Chinese consumers have shown a big willingness to pay huge premiums for iPhones, it’s far from clear they’ll do the same for movies and music that they can usually download for free.
Apple sold a record 13 million iPhone 6s models worldwide in their first weekend on sale, easily beating the previous record of 10 million for the iPhone 6 models. China was an important factor in achieving the new record, since the iPhone 6 wasn’t available here during the first weekend of its global launch due to technical reasons. Apple hasn’t given any individual country figures yet, but it’s probably safe to assume it sold at least 3 million of the new iPhones in China during their opening weekend. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Mark Zuckerberg’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and new China-related remarks by Sheryl Sandberg show Facebook is closing in on a goal of launching its signature service in China, with a breakthrough possible as soon as next year.
Facebook thrives on China ad sales
Despite being blocked in the world’s largest Internet market, social networking (SNS) giant Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) is using every opportunity to quietly remind the world that it’s determined to include China in its global footprint. Just a week after company founder Mark Zuckerberg met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a high-profile event in Seattle, his chief deputy Sheryl Sandberg was quoted at an event in New York talking up the big business Facebook is already doing in China.
Company watchers will know that Facebook quietly opened a China office in Beijing last year, with an aim to courting local advertisers seeking to reach the company’s global audience of 1.5 billion users. That business is doing quite well, according to Sandberg, though the Facebook’s ultimate China goal is still its eventual entry into a domestic Internet market that boasts nearly 700 million web surfers. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Microsoft’s new tie-up with Baidu could presage a major scale-back for its China-based Bing search engine, paving the way for Baidu technology to power the struggling service.
Microsoft, Baidu in new China search tie-up
An interesting new dance is taking shape between global software titan Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and leading Chinese search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), paving the way for a potential exit of Microsoft’s Bing search engine from China after years of disappointing results. After announcing a new tie-up that will see Baidu promote Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 10 operating system in China, the pair are saying said that Baidu will now become the default search engine on the web browser associated with the newest Windows.
Microsoft will clearly benefit from the first move, which should help it to sell more legal copies of its core Windows OS in China. Baidu is the clear beneficiary from the second move, making this look somewhat like an even trade-off. But while the first move is relatively neutral to Baidu, the second will see Microsoft effectively sacrifice Bing in China. That’s because very few people use the search engine, and now that number will drop even more if Bing loses its default status on the new Windows browser. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A new plan allowing customers of China’s 3 telcos to roll over unused data is being forced upon them by Beijing, and once again underscores the regulators’ frustration at their inability to innovate.
Telcos launch data roll-over policy
In the latest signal of just how uncreative China’s big 3 telcos are, the trio have all just simultaneously announced a major new move to boost data usage on their networks by lowering costs for consumers. It will come as no surprise that none of the 3 carriers are taking this step voluntarily, and instead are being forced into the move by the telecoms regulator. But that’s quite common for the uninspired trio of China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL), China Unicom (HKEx: 763; NYSE: CHU) and China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA).
Instead, it’s more interesting to note that this new move may represent the latest signal of Beijing’s growing frustration with a trio of companies that have become global laggards despite having a state-granted monopoly over the world’s largest telecoms market. That frustration could see Beijing soon decide to end the state-run monopoly, in an overhaul that would allow privately funded players into the market and perhaps even see a merger for 2 of the current big 3 telcos. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Cisco’s new joint venture will mostly resell its networking equipment into China, and is unlikely to ease Beijing’s worries that its products could be used by Washington for cyber spying.
Cisco calls on China with new JV
Networking equipment giant Cisco (NYSE: CSCO) has become the latest global tech firm to capitulate to China’s national security paranoia, announcing the formation of a new joint venture with a local partner. The tie-up with Inspur Group is just the latest in a recent string of new China-based partnerships involving big western tech firms. Those companies, whose ranks also include IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), fear that without such well-connected local partners, they could get locked out of the lucrative IT services market under tough restrictions imposed by a new Chinese national security law.
Announcement of the new joint venture with Inspur marks a major shift for Cisco, which up until now has preferred to do its business in China by itself rather than with a local partner. Cisco’s earlier go-it-alone posture has already come with a high cost it in a country where Beijing prefers to see big foreign tech names transfer technology to local partners. Thus this latest partnership should perhaps help to ease some of that pressure, even though it could ultimately put some of Cisco’s intellectual property at risk. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba needs to take a more low-key approach to improving its government relations, rather than making a big spectacle of cultivating better ties with Beijing.
Alibaba govt relations campaign in overdrive
Alibaba(NYSE: BABA) founder and chief cheerleader Jack Ma has never really understood the meaning of the word “moderation”, which is all too clear with his sudden interest in cultivating better relations with Beijing. Ma has been pulling all the stops in a bid to be closely associated with this week’s US trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping, appearing at related events and announcing a new donation that synchronized nicely with a concurrent speech by Xi.
All that schmoozing certainly looks understandable, and Ma was actually just one of many US and Chinese tech leaders trying to share the stage with China’s president on his first state trip to the US. But Alibaba’s public relations machine was taking things just a bit too far when it joined the Beijing love affair and began promoting stories related to US-Chinese themes from the official Xinhua news agency, often considered the mouthpiece of the Chinese government. Read Full Post…
